Hear Stephen Malkmus and the Jicks' Slippery, Triumphant 'Lariat'

Matador shares track list for 'Wig Out at Jagbags,' due out January 7

Stephen Malkmus and the Jicks have let Wig Out at Jagbags out of the (jag)bag. The former Pavement leader already previewed material from his sixth Jicks album over the weekend at Portland's Crystal Ballroom, plus a Velvet Underground cover. Now Matador has shared the track list and cover art for the January 7 follow-up to 2011's Mirror Traffic — plus a lyric video for "Lariat," a playfully rhyming, goofily referential song that's as perfect Malkmus-in-jester-mode as the album's title.

It's "Tennyson and venison and the Grateful Dead," "Mudhoney, Torch of Mystics, Double Bummer," oxygen, "foxy then" (sorry Foxygen), all over gracefully wending lead guitar, acoustic strums, and rhythm-section clamber that might be filed under #90srevival if this weren't who it is. So of course the video involves a woman in a striped shirt struggling to translate the song from an iPod, as the lyrics scroll by in French at the bottom, rendering a refrain like "you're not what you aren't" into something out of an early-20th century surrealist painting.

"We grew up listening to the music from the best decade ever," Malkmus declares, and by now you know which one he means, right? "Talkin' 'bout the A-D-Ds."

Malkmus says in a statement: "Wig Out At Jagbags is inspired by Cologne, Germany, Mark Von Schlegell, Rosemarie Trockel, Von Spar and Jan Lankisch, Can and Gas; Stephen-Malkmus-imagined Weezer/Chili Peppers, Sic Alps, UVA in the late 80's, NYRB, Aroma Charlottenburg, inactivity, Jamming, Indie guys trying to sound Memphis, Flipper, Pete Townshend, Pavement, The Joggers, The NBA and home life in the 2010s …”